Corporation Commission candidate bumped off ballot
The Arizona Supreme Court knocked Kim Owens out of the race for a Corporation Commission seat on Thursday, leaving only two Republicans in a primary for three seats on the influential board.
A Republican will need to launch a successful writein campaign and win at least 6,663 votes in the primary to win the party’s nomination and give the GOP a full slate of candidates for the general election.
Otherwise, Republicans would effectively forfeit a seat on the Corporation Commission to one of the three Democrats running for the five-member board, which regulates utilities and sets electric rates for millions of Arizonans.
Owens faced two legal challenges to her nominating petitions, with lawsuits arguing that many of the signatures she had gathered were signed by voters who were not eligible to sign, were duplicates or signed incorrectly.
A Superior Court judge said just enough of the nominating signatures were valid to qualify for the Republican primary. She had 6,670 valid signatures, slightly more than the 6,663 needed.
The state Supreme Court disagreed Thursday, writing that Owens convinced the lower court judge that many of the signatures were valid based on “GOP data center” records but did not make the records available.
“Additionally, there was no testimony establishing that either the Data Center records or Owen’s testimony about the records constituted reliable, competent evidence for the court to consider,” said the order from a four-member panel of the court.
There was no reasonable evidence to conclude that enough of the signatures were valid, the court concluded.
Contacted on Thursday evening, Owens said she was reviewing the order.
“It’s always unfortunate when the voters aren’t the ones to determine who will represent them,” she said.
The order leaves Eric Sloan and incumbent Lea Marquez Peterson as the only Republicans running for seats on the Corporation Commission.
The commission has four Republican members and one Democrat. And Democrats have been eyeing the prospect of picking up more seats, particularly in the wake of the APS rate hike in 2017.
The state Supreme Court disqualified incumbent commissioner Boyd Dunn from the Republican primary on Wednesday, ending his bid for re-election after a campaign worker said she had forged some of the signatures on his nominating petition.
With that order, there will not be any members of the commission left who voted for the 2017 rate hike.
Three Democrats — Bill Mundell, Shea Stanfield and Anna Tovar — are running for the board this year and each is assured a spot on the general election ballot in November.